How I Built This with Guy Raz - Advice Line: Tapping AI as a Resource for Your Business

Episode Date: January 1, 2026

This week, Guy is joined by TRX exercise straps founder Randy Hetrick, chicken restaurant giant Raising Cane’s Todd Graves, and Chesapeake Bay Candle Company founder Mei Xu in a special episode of the Advice Line. We talk about how to navigate today’s crowded social media landscape... And ways founders can start thinking about AI.  First, Shireen from Pennsylvania wants to know how to do better getting customers to attend her cooking demos… Then, Valerie from Idaho wonders whether separate social media accounts amount to the best path for her brand... And finally, Avani from New Jersey needs help scaling her business. Thank you to the founders of Moji Masala , Large as Life puzzles, and Modi Toys for coming on the show.If you’d like to be featured on a future Advice Line episode, leave us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and a specific question you’d like answered. Send a voice memo to [e-mail] or call 1-800-433-1298. This episode was produced by Rommel Wood with music by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by Andrea Bruce. Our audio engineer was Cena Loffredo. You can follow HIBT on X & Instagram and sign up for my free newsletter at guyraz.com or on Substack.To hear our returning guests’ previous episodes:TRX: Randy Hetrick | Advice Line with Randy Hetrick of TRXRaising Cane's: Todd Graves | Advice Line with Todd Graves of Raising Cane'sChesapeake Bay Candle: Mei Xu | Advice Line with Mei Xu of Chesapeake Bay Candle and BluemeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-infoSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. I talk to entrepreneurs all the time who are looking for a way to upgrade their digital footprint. Well, whether you're just starting out or you're scaling your business, Squarespace is the easiest way to build a great website that stands out. It's an all-in-one website platform that gives you everything you need to claim your domain, showcase your products, and get paid. Anyone can use Squarespace's cutting-edge design tools to build an online presence that truly reflects what makes your business special.

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And being in that home on Airbnb, right in the middle of Vienna, walking distance from so much of the city, made it feel less like a visit and more like we were actually living there. Plus, taking a trip is the perfect time to host your space on Airbnb. Your place with all of its personal touches and its amazing location could make someone else's vacation even better. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.ca.com slash host. Hello and welcome to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz. This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges. And this week, we're bringing you a special mash-up episode featuring three.

returning guests and three new callers. You'll hear advice in using AI to grow your business and new ways to break through a crowded social media landscape. And if you're building something and you need advice, give us a call and you just might be the next guest on the show. Our number is 1-800-4331298. Send us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you'd like help with.

You can also send us a voice memo at H-I-B-T. at ID.wondry.com and make sure to tell us how to reach you. And also, don't forget to sign up for my newsletter. It's full of insights and ideas from the world's greatest entrepreneurs. You can sign up for free at gairoze.com. And we'll put all this info in the podcast description. All right, let's get to it. Our first guest is Randy Hedrick. He's the founder and the guy who actually invented TRX. Randy first came on how I built this back in 2017, and he told this wild story about being a Navy seal on a remote assignment, rigging an old jujitsu belt to a door,

and basically creating an entirely new way to work out wherever you are. It's an awesome episode. We'll put a link to it in the show notes, or just search TRX in our feed. And as you'll hear, Randy's also exactly the right person to talk about how to get a product in front of more people and actually get it noticed. All right, Randy, let's bring in our first caller to the advice line.

Please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just one line about your business, please. Thanks. Hi, Guy, and Randy. It's so great to be with you today. My name is Shereen, and I co-founded Moji Masala with my husband, J.D. We are a family-owned and operated business based in Philly. We started Moji Masala to make it super easy for anyone to make authentic, delicious homemade Indian food from scratch.

It's a very intimidating process often and a little complicated, but with Moji Masala, you just take one of our 14 pre-measured spice packets. You buy a few produce items. You use our recipe to make one specific Indian dish that serves three to five people. And they are my mom's heirloom recipes that I spent two years beta testing to actually create the final product. Nice. Wow, congrats. Well, welcome, Shireen.

Thanks for calling in. So basically these are spice packets and you mix them with like oil or clarified butter and add them to a meat or a vegetable. Yeah, it's a simple process, but it's actually, you're actually cooking the dish as if you like opened up a recipe in a cookbook and they gave you like this list of 15 spices and gave you the like eight steps. Yeah. So the hardest part of Indian food is actually aggregating the spices, having a recipe for the blends and then just like knowing what to do with it. Our product packaging is very informative. It has like a shopping list on the back and a QR code that goes to the actual recipe and a cooking video. So there's no guesswork.

There's no leftover spices. You're literally just using our product to create like kind of a magical dish and experiences so seamless that I think it's almost like alarming to people to actually have this experience. By the way, when did you start the business? So we really were ready to launch right in late 2019, right for COVID. And then coming out of COVID, the last couple of years, is really when we've pushed hard on our online, but also on retail expansion. And is this your full-time job? Is this what both of you guys, you and your husband are working on? This is my full-time job.

It's my husband's half-time job, I would say, and my full-time job. Yeah, it's a second career for me. That's awesome. So you launch in 2019. Tell me a little bit of, and are you mainly selling? online and through Amazon and retailers. Well, it would break that down for me. Yeah, we started online and naively thought we could like hit the ground running online.

I think it became pretty clear that unless we had like a million dollars that we really had to, we really needed a retail strategy. We got into Citarela about a year ago, which is a seven-store chain throughout New York, Connecticut, and the Hamptons. We also got into a fresh direct. And we are in some, a Wii, which is an Asian online retailer. Sure. Sure. We've done a wee on the show.

Yeah. Yep. And tell us what your questions. What's your pain point that you're looking for help with? Yeah. So, Randy, our in-store demos have been very successful. We have a sell-to-rate of over 90% when someone samples our product and actually gets to try it. And we're attracting a wide spectrum of customers, busy families, young people wanting to try something new, vegetarians, vegans. So, Randy, just like you had to teach people, not only what your product was, but how to use it, we're trying to figure out how to reach this broad array of potential customers that we can't

get with a live demo. And we'd love your input on that. Well, first of all, Shereen, your description has me salivating. I'm realizing that Indian for lunch would be exquisite right now. How are you guys getting your kind of, how are you promoting it early? Like, what are you you guys doing right now to promote the brand? So right now, the single biggest thing we do is because we have retailers that we want to support and we have a very hub and spoke model that we show up regularly at the stores, doing the demos, letting people try it. In terms of spending money, we're on Amazon and then we pay to like, you know, highlight our

Amazon where we pay, we do Google to like, our website is, it's not a flat website. It's a very interactive website. And because you need to access our recipes and our video, So paying to sort of lead people to our website is is productive as far as hopefully leading to sales. So I pulled up your website as soon as you started talking and it's it's friendly and it's inviting. And what I was hoping you were going to say is exactly what you said, which is you're out there sampling. Yes. Right.

And because to me, something like, I mean, you guys are you guys profitable at this point on a just on a monthly operating basis? or are you, how are you financing this, in other words? Yeah, so the way I, it's self-financed, you know, because I had a long career, we did have savings. That's not a bottomless sort of a pit of savings. So, you know, we have to be smarter about our next steps. But one of the things I was really important to me was that the product be profitable. Like so when I, when we sell this product, it is profitable.

Now, of course, there's, I don't know how to think about. And this is also, I'd love your input, like all the other costs associated with that, you know, as far as marketing and, you know, maybe you have to go do trade shows, which are thousands and thousands of dollars. And so it's very easy to be to have. Sorry. Here's where, here's where I, where I was going to go with this is that, you know, I, the reason I ask the question about profitability is because if you don't have, you know, outside investors that are, that are, for instance, you're a ticking clock, right, that forces you to do things. You're in a great position right now. If you have a really great product and it certainly sounds like it and looks like it,

the question is, how do you get that trial? And I would say to you, given that you don't have external pressures really on you, that what's the rush? The best way to do this, right, is to be out there on the ground, letting people try your product. And then, you know, showing them, that you have a website because obviously you have to be a little bit careful about going into a to a retailer's establishment and then trying to drive people to your website. So you've got to be a little bit careful about that. But I think that the idea of figuring out how to scale your sampling program is to me a better and much more sort of long lived way to get customers who are going to fall in love with you. Because look, you can spend a lot of money putting your, your, your,

Food's avatar in front of me. But if I can't smell it and I can't taste it, it's lost in the noise. Whereas if you put it in my mouth and I'm like, oh my gosh, this is delicious. Now you've got me. Right. So to me, I would spend less time at the moment, given where you guys are, doing paid media and more time actually having people get your product in their mouth. Yes.

No, I love that you have that reaction because I think, instinctively we think that and we're two people and I'm you know we had the opportunity for example to go national we deferred that because it just takes a lot of money and we knew we can't have success without demos and that would mean probably hiring a demo team so and then I was like of course who's who's going to represent on a demo team the way I can probably nobody and then it was like oh then we have to train them so on and so forth so it's it became a bigger idea but then also more murky as to is that the way to do it? Should I be hiring people? Should I work with outside people? Should I just go myself and do like 10 stores hard and do it all like me because I'm the

one who's going to sell best? Well, I don't think you're going to be able to be the chief, the sampler in chief all the time, right? I can tell you having done that with my straps. You know, you sort of run out of you pretty quickly. But you're going to have to make some choices on where you spend your money, right? Because you don't have a ton of it. And I don't think it would be prudent right now to go get a ton of it from someone else. And then, you know, I think that a little bit of money can probably go a fairly long way in an organic sampling program.

And you'll know at the point at which you really start to have momentum. And now you're like, okay, how do we amplify this? and then you'll have the next decision to make, right? Do you do it through paid media or do you step up your sampling program, you know, another level? Yes. I think, I think, Randy, you're exactly right. I would just add to that that you can do some of this concurrently. Like, I'm not sure that you need to do one before you do the next.

Like, I do think that it's true. This is something you want to sample. People want to smell this. It's going to smell so delicious, right? But here's the thing, and you know this. There is my kids, right? Now, as we speak, are at my house, in the kitchen, making steak sandwiches based on a YouTuber, right? Because they follow a YouTuber and they told and they went to the store and got all the stuff and they're making sense.

So so many people now are making recipes based on what they're seeing on Instagram and YouTube. I'm talking about micro-influencers who might be, you know, maybe it's somebody who's just a really interesting food, you know, micro-influencer around food. and you work with them and you partner with them and you say, all right, we're going to put like 20,000 bucks into this, which is no small amount of cash, right?

But you say, let's think really strategically. Let's really kind of find out who's out there. And by the way, you can use AI to help you with this, to help you find and identify some of these sort of medium to micro, and a micro-influencer is somebody with like 10 to 50,000 followers, right? Yes, yes. You do want people to smell this and try this, but you want people to see it too. And it's hard to scale an in-store demo, right?

The way to do it is through the right partner. And food influencers are enormous. It's still a growing, as far as I understand, it's still a growing sector in a lot of these social media platforms. That's a good point you make, I, because we have worked with influencers, but I hadn't really put the number around it the way you have. And I think, as opposed to 300 here, 500 there, let's see what we get, really sort of saying, okay, we're going to have a $20,000 budget for 15 months and really maybe go deep with two or three people with that. I don't know if that would go. And spend the time really following these people and looking at what they're doing and seeing how much engagement they're getting. Oftentimes people put their engagement numbers right there on their Instagram or TikTok.

You can see how many views it. So I would start by doing some search searches and look. looking at AI and having them help you and having to help you. And then looking at some of these influencers and picking a few and just saying, you know what, we got 20 grand to work with over the next year. And we're going to start to cede this cash. Yeah, I love that idea. Where I was sort of thinking more that I would shy away from is doing sort of big paid ad buys.

Right? Because I think, I think, you know, spending a bunch of money on, you know, on Facebook platform or any other platform to take an ad and project it isn't really where you need to be right now. I totally agree with Guy that if you can find you know some fun, quirky, uh, foody influencers with followings. Yes. And get them to show just how cool and easy and tasty this thing is to use. That would be a great way to do it and you wouldn't spend a bunch of cash. It's a great two-prong strategy. It's great advice. Shereen Khadri, the brand is called Moji Masala. Congrats. Good luck. Thank you so much for calling in. Thanks so much. All right. Thanks. Thanks. this to me is such a great product because it's not it's it's not process it's just it's a spice blend

and it and it gives you the step-by-step instruction so it's really cool it's really great yeah you know who did kind of a fun job on what you're talking about without any influencers they were trying to create the persona and they're spending a lot of money doing it was hello fresh right with some of the stuff that they did with meals where you would watch their kind of their what looked to be organic user content, but showing just how easy it is to put it together. And it really made you want to do it. And so I love the idea of using actually some micro-influencers instead of paid media. Yes. We're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, a jigsaw puzzle brand gets social media advice from the founder of a restaurant chain worth billions of dollars.

Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to a special mashup episode of Advice Line on how I built this lab. Hey, welcome back to the device line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz. So up next is Todd Graves, the founder of Raising Cains, the fried chicken tender chain. Todd first came on the show back in 2022 and we'll drop a link to that episode in the show notes. And what's always stuck with me about his business is how he built a billion dollar business without constantly changing the menu or adding a bunch of new options. And as you'll hear, Todd has a lot to say about why staying focused on your core business is often the real key to long-term success. All right, let's bring in our next caller.

Welcome to the advice line. You're on with Todd Graves. Tell us your name where you're calling from and just a line or two about your business. Hi, Guy. Hi, Todd. I'm Valerie. I'm calling from Boise, Idaho. I am a co-neur-co-founder of three unique new jigsaw puzzle companies,

learn about life, large as life, and laugh with life. Our company creates conversation starting jigsaw puzzles that spark laughter, curiosity, and connection through play. Awesome. Valerie, thanks for calling in. All right, large as life. These are jigsaw puzzles. Yes. Am I to assume that they are large as life? They're giants jigsaw puzzles? Yes. So that was our first line that we came up with in 2024. They are life size animal jigsaw puzzles, 50 pieces. So they're the large pieces. And there is a trivia question about the animal. on the back of every piece. Wow. What animals do you guys make puzzles out of?

So we just have three out to start out with. We have a red panda. We have a king penguin and we have a koala. And right now in production, we have a life-sized bald eagle with a six-foot wingspan. That one's 100 pieces, 100 trivia questions. That should be coming out this year by the end of the year. Not doing a blue whale yet. Not yet.

It might be a little cost-per-having. So tell me how this business came about. How did this idea come about? Yeah, so my sister-in-law Courtney, she was visiting Yellowstone, and she made note in her mind passing all of these, don't get so close to the bison signs, which people unfortunately often ignore. And she was just thinking about that, and she went into the gift shop, and she thought, you know what, I wish there was something that I could bring home that we could undo on our kitchen floor. We could lay down next to it and see the scale of the size, and we could have.

a life-size bison and then put it all back in a box and put it on a shelf. And she is a mom of four and a teacher as well. And so she's, you know, done lots of puzzles and such. She said, oh, this is the perfect idea, life-sized animal puzzles. And I'm assuming these are sold on your website? Yes. So we started out fulfilling orders through our website, realized that since nobody knew who we were, we weren't getting many sales on our website. And once we got started on Amazon, which was about June of 2024, we just moved all our sales there for simplicity and sales tax remittance ease and things like that. So right now we have a website and our products link all to our Amazon accounts. Yeah. And tell us a little bit about how the business is doing. Give us a sense of what your

sales are right now. Sure. So 2024 since starting on Amazon in June, we made about $30,000 in revenue. And then this year, we're projected to definitely be more than that. I don't know if it will quite hit double that. It's kind of hard to tell because some of our additional products just came out right toward the end of quarter four last year. And we're just starting puzzle season. So it's hard to get an accurate estimate of what we think we might be projected to do this year. All right.

Before we dive in a little bit more, tell us your question. Yes. So my question is, our three puzzle brands all share the same. same heart, but they have distinct personalities. As we create a parent company to tie them together, I'm wondering what's more effective for social media strategy is that one unified account under the parent brand or separate accounts that let each brand speak directly to its audience. And just to be clear, you've got the animals, puzzles, and then you mentioned trivia puzzles. Yes. So we have these life-size animal trivia puzzles.

then we have a laugh with Lifeline that incorporates jokes as well, and then learn about life. That's just trivia on a variety of topics. And you're promoting all of these separately, separate social media channels to separate audiences? Currently, yes. Even though there's a connecting component that they all have a conversational element integrated in them, and they all have the same high-quality standards and everything else, I'm not sure do I just stick with each focus of each of those brands, or do I put them all in one where it's easier to find, but maybe it looks a little bit more jumbled. All right. I want to bring Todd Graves in here. You guys have mastered social media. It's amazing with Keynes.

So thoughts, questions for Valerie? Yeah. So Valerie, when you said it's distinct, you know, it's distinct audiences between the three brands. Right. And so if you have three different, you know, social channel, I mean, you know, literally, are they separate voices? So, I mean, are you having, what's to say, for example, if you had some influencers. Would they be like that? Are you marketing them very differently? Are you just showing your product to the different audiences but it resonates because they're into animals or into laughter or whatnot?

I think it's more the latter. I mean, I've had some influencers. I've had some homeschool moms and homeschool influencers on the one channel. And then I've had some people who are big into maybe speed puzzling or a thousand piece puzzle collectors who have shown our product on some of the other lines. But I can't say that overall we've had any huge push that totally pulls us away from puzzling in general. Okay. So I'll just give you some experiences.

I mean, look, I think we're pretty good at social media for Keynes. But that's what I know. We feed the people. And our customer demographics range from old elderly couples that like to come into the restaurant because we're reasonably priced and like our friendly crew. And everybody likes fried chicken, right? And cane sauce. But then that goes down to all the way to kids, right? And so there are social media.

I don't do different social media handles to where you go to different type deals. We only have, it's three. One is Raising Kane's corporate account. One is mine, right? The founder and one is my dog, Kane three, right? Our mascot. But we collab constantly and we reach sports fans. We have people that love actors and actresses that are going around.

We have people that like all forms of music, right? We have people with so many different interests. What you're uniting forces are people that like puzzles and like to have fun, right, and like to do things. I think the people that would like the trivia-based or the fun side would also love to see some beautiful puzzles of bison that are life-size. I think all that can go together and actually creates more content for an interesting content for your audience versus I'm just watching the one that, done with the whole homeschool group and this is educational. They're missing out on seeing the bison. and they're missing out on seeing these other ones. And I think the core goes together.

And I think when you can focus on that, it's kind of more of a win for everybody. And I also think expands your sales because I think they look across your products and say, hey, it would be fun for us to do that tabletop puzzle. And let's buy that. That's just my opinion. Thank you.

Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, social media isn't necessarily about products. It's about stories, right? People are looking for like a vibe or personality. but I think what you are selling is an emotional thing. It's an experience. You're selling families together, gathering together. It's family time, right?

Yes. That's what your brand is. That's what your product is. It's not puzzles. It's not even the 10 other things you might make. It's the time that a parent and a child or parents are going to take to gather around and make this stuff and be together. And that's really what your brand is, right? And that's why you want to speak about that.

with one voice. Does that make sense? Yes, yes. Yeah, and then you can also, you focus your, you know, like content, right? You can focus on interesting things that all puzzle people and all, all families like together. Like let's say, who's the fastest puzzle builder, right? Takes your thousand piece puzzle and does it and you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever that puzzle is, it's about, that's exciting that someone did it. As a family was trying to do it quicker, right?

Valerie had so and so on and showed us how to do puzzles quick. And you can, and that's, that's unified across all your, your audience. And that's also, too, what people start sharing. So I'd hate you to do that one idea on the 1000 puzzle thing that goes to the one audience. And then the animal lovers didn't ever see that, right? You want that. And the engagement goes and you got more people talking about it and more people that will then start following you. Right.

And then when they share it and they engage it and they comment on it, that's when it really, the algorithms really kick up. Oh, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. I mean, I even notice you've got different websites for laugh with life and learn about life. And, I mean, it would just save you time and money and just, you know, brain. space by just putting it all under one. I would put everything on the main site, the largest life, or pick one, whatever one has the most traffic, and you sell everything there. You make that your brand. Yeah, that makes a lot more sense in terms of ease, as well as more people getting to see

what we have to offer. When I focus on the common elements and common themes of puzzling and togetherness, it flows. Yeah. Yeah, it flows throughout all of them, right? And it's like I said, you know, people should know what you stand for, right? We're puzzle people. And we're really about family spending time together, doing something very fun that goes through that. That's our core, right? And then your products, and you can keep adding products, right?

Other puzzles might hit another group of fan base and things like that, but it's one voice that goes through. And also, too, is, you know, holiday time's coming up. So I'm already thinking about how do I order your puzzles, right? But if I have one place to go look at it, I got a nephew that's so into sports, right? But I also have a daughter that's so into animals. So like a life-sized bison on the floor, that's going to be a blast. But if I had to go to different places and look at that, I couldn't order for the five or six people I want to do.

And the people that, when they all come to the house, they can all open the different puzzles. And I got, you know, people that are into trivia and all that. They can all, we can all, like, do all those together. Yeah. But we had one spot. And I bought six things versus I only knew about the one. Right. That's a really great point.

Well, currently we can't, you know, they're all sold on Amazon. So that's one, one stop shop for them. But there's nowhere to find them all in one place before you go. go there. So I completely see what you're saying. That's a perfect recommendation. Thank you. Awesome. All right. Larges Life, Valerie Abenroth, thanks so much for calling in. Good luck. Thank you so much. And if I could just mention real quick, I have listened to your show for so many years, Guy. It's been so motivational, inspirational for me. I'm so grateful. I just appreciate so much you sharing your stories and, Guy, you giving the platform for us to be able to hear these and be inspired by them.

Thank you for letting us now. Really appreciate you. That's why we do it. We do it for those reasons. Thank you for calling in. Good luck, Valerie. Thank you. Well, you know, Valerie doing that, that's a good question, right, in doing it. I think that was some good advice for her and to bring it all together. I think she'll see some good success over that. You know, I hope for her, too, is that getting the word out is the thing, right?

And that can be done cheaply through influencers in doing, and then she should, you know, hit her local sources to get as much news and press as you can. She's got a great story, right? and they're doing well. She just, she needs, she needs, she needs, she needs more people knowing about it. We're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, a caller gets some great AI advice that could change how she builds her product. Stick around. You're listening to a mashup episode of The Advice Line on How I Built This Lab. Hey, welcome back to the Advice Line on How I Built This Lab.

I'm Guy Raz. So our last returning guest is May Shoe. She's the founder of Chesapeake Bay Candle. And May first came on the show back in 2016. and we'll drop a link to that episode in the show notes as well. May's story is incredible. She's a Chinese immigrant who got her start in the candle business by experimenting with scents and then pouring wax literally into Campbell's soup cans in her basement.

And the company really took off. She eventually sold it for $75 million. And in a moment, you'll hear May bring that same inventive thinking to a new challenge. She helps brainstorm how AI could help grow a very niche toy and book business. All right, let's bring in our final caller. Welcome to the advice line. You're on with Mayshu. Please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just one line about your business, please. Hi, Guy. Hi, May. I'm Abney Modi-Serkar. I'm calling from New Jersey. I am the co-founder of Modi Toys, a brand that helps Indian families and the diaspora stay connected to their roots

through our plush toys and matching children's books inspired by Hindu culture. All right, welcome to the show. Thanks for calling. And all right, so you make plush dolls that are designed for Indians who are practicing Hindus? Correct. It's primarily for the Hindu community. Of course, not everyone that's Indian identifies themselves as Hindu and vice versa. We've noticed that those living outside of India really resonate with our products because they are the ones who have this deep root of connection to want to stay connected to the Indian roots. Got it.

Okay. And these are plush dolls that are, tell me a bit more. about them. Yeah, so these are plush toys that when you squeeze their belly, they sing five sacred ancient Hindu mantras. And we have a collection of a total of seven, and they come in three sizes, the mini, the medium, and the mega. And they also come with a corresponding children's book, which is written in rhyming verses. So it's really meant to introduce the Hindu culture to kids in a really fun, accessible way. And the plush toys are, are, are, Are there animals? Tell me, describe them a little bit.

Yeah, so if you're familiar with Greek mythology, how there's, you know, Zeus, the god of war, Venus, the goddess of love. Similarly, in Hinduism, each god and goddess also represents some quality. So Ganesh, which is the elephant-headed god. But Ganesh is the most widely known. He is considered to be the god of good luck, the one that is who is most widely worshipped. We have Hanuman, the god of strength. We have Duri God, the goddess of protection. So, you know, what we have learned is that although we designed the toys for kids because of what they symbolize, they really resonate with people of all ages within the Hindu community.

I was looking, I mean, massive addressable market. There's over a billion Hindus on the planet, but it sounds like you're focused on diaspora and maybe Hindus living in the West. We definitely have the biggest market here in the U.S. And in fact, my co-founder, who's my brother, he moved back to India with his family, really to try to grow the market there in India specifically. Because we learn just, you know, through the demands that we were seeing from customers there that they wanted our products there as well. So we know that there is a global market. But, you know, I think in terms of the price point and who the messaging connects with the most is the diaspora. And how much does it cost?

So our toys range anywhere from 1650 for the mini size to $55 for the mega size. And we all fell them as bundles. And you launched us in 2018, you said? Correct, in late 2018. And what are you guys doing in sales per year? So that's kind of what leads me to my question. Please, yes. Yeah. So we did really well when we first launched. We saw a strong year-over-a-year growth through

organic buzz and just through the community love with little to, you know, no paid ads between 2018 to 2021. In fact, we hit nearly a million dollars in sales in 2021. But over the last three years, sales have declined despite us launching more skews, investing in marketing and expanding to India. So my question is, how do we reignite growth? and scale strategically and reach our true potential. All right. Meshu, I want to bring you in. This is, it's interesting because it's obviously a doll that is directed towards a specific community,

but a huge community, right? I mean, the U.S. alone, I was seeing there's three, three and a half million Hindus. So, you know, interesting opportunity there. I'm always curious. Do you see a competition? Usually, you know, there might be someone that you cultivate it, over the years? We have definitely inspired copycats in the past couple of years, but I don't think they are

the reason why our sales have declined. I think the reason why we did so well initially is because we grew tremendously on social media. And of course, you know, algorithms are constantly evolving, so you can't really control, you know, how many people you're reaching through social media. But, you know, in 2022, onward is when we started seeing the decline. So I think some of it is macroeconomic conditions as well. But, you know, it still doesn't address the fact that we've continued introducing new products, which is really important in the toy industry.

So where is the disconnect coming from is what I'm trying to understand. Avni, what kind of like resources do you have to work with, like marketing resources? Like, do you have, you know, can you spend, you know, $20,000, $40,000? It's a lot. I'm just curious. We actually do spend almost that much just on Google and meta ads. I am the marketing team. I am the marketing income.

I am the marketing CMO. But yeah, I mean, that's the extent of money that we spend currently on marketing. We do email marketing and paid ads. Obviously, I want to be sensitive because I'm not, you know, I don't know all the nuances of every, you know, religious tradition. But I wonder whether, I'm looking at this. I'm thinking, especially with. AI technology and the ability to create animations very quickly and cheaply, like, I see an opportunity to make animated, just little animated shorts, like 45 seconds to two minutes that are tied to

the tradition and the culture. You know, it's like Pop Patrol doesn't make money from the cartoons. Yeah, the movies do, but they make money from their selling lunch boxes. and stuffed animals and pajamas. You know, that's really, you're basically, you know, it's a, it's a, obviously these are sacred characters, but they're characters, right? And so to me it seems like there's an opportunity to really try and reach, especially audiences in Canada and the United States and the UK where you've got a huge Hindu diaspora. that, have you ever thought about trying animation?

Absolutely. So in fact, the board books that we have to correspond with the plush toys, they're available on our YouTube channel completely for free. We've turned them into animated videos, but just off of those like seven books that we have. But those videos have garnered, you know, hundreds of thousands of views. So we know that there's definitely a demand for that. But we have not created independent animated material that's all. unrelated to the books. But yes, absolutely. That's something that we would love to do. But I don't know if it's as

as easy, even with AI or even for you. It's not simple, but it's a lot easier now. I mean, I can tell you that. It's a lot easier than ever before. And we do some of this with my kids company, and I've even experimented with it. It's not perfect yet. But there's a lot you can do. And I wonder whether it's worth kind of exploring that, seeing if you can take a little bit of the cash you have for marketing and seeing See, if you could build a few short videos, just morality tales or cool, you know, little stories that are revolving around the, you know, these characters, but animated, that tie back to what you're selling. Yeah, absolutely. I think there's definitely a demand. In fact, I think I recently heard that the two or three of the top five YouTube channels in the world currently are kids' channels. So there's definitely a demand and market for that. I don't know how it works on social media, but can you target Hindus? Can you target people from India expats?

Absolutely. You know, we're trying all possible avenues and we try so many. And in fact, you know, one of the things that really excited me when I learned you were going to be on the show is that, you know, like you, I'm also an immigrant. I have no background in the business that I'm in. I'm also in business with my sibling like you were with your sister. And, you know, we're also in the novelty business. And but it doesn't have to be can I give you an idea? Maybe you'll tell me if it works. It is a guy that inspired me. What if you make this an interactive, AI-driven conversational doll? Because just making a doll, at some point, you know, if there's no interaction with people, they get tired of it and you can't really expand on just a doll. But what if you make it so that,

it's interactive. A kid can ask questions about what do you, what is this God stand for? And why are you important in the history of the culture? And how does that relate to each other? And what would you do if I have this situation? What would you do? So that using AI, it becomes a talking God. I want one of those.

Oh, I want one too now. And you can have a subscription program where you subscribe to one doll, you get one price, you subscribe to $2, it's a different price, and each one stands for something that can help you giving you different directions in life. Oh, fascinating. So I have no idea how the mechanics would work behind a technology like that, but that sounds really interesting because you're writing right now, it's somewhat static and that I can only sing these five mantras, and that's it. But yeah, what if it was more interactive in almost like real time? Yeah, it could be

interesting. I mean, there you would probably need to raise some money to do the R&D, but you know, an embedded chip in there that's Wi-Fi connected and, you know, essentially you've got a plush computer, right? And that could be more, you'd have to produce guardrails around that. You know, you'd want, you want the doll to be focused on primarily what it is, but it could be interesting. Yeah, it would have come of the displays. There are a lot of good engineers that's in the Hindu culture and that's where... Some of the greatest engineers from India. Exactly.

You could build it with the resources back in your home country like I did, right? It's not that you are an outsider. You have a very unique advantage that none of us have, which is the ability to close that cultural gap, but also having a resilient workforce. Yeah, I would also, I was just one last thing. Just from a business perspective, right, and we talked about the addressable market here, And it's significance. I mean, it's not insignificant at all. I would also just think sort of in the long term, as you look out on the horizon, if you're focused on, especially on diaspora communities and on igniting interest in Hindu culture and Indian culture, you know, you've got books. You've got the plush dolls. But think about your business in a bigger way than just, you know, a business about dolls or books, but a business about getting people to become more knowledge. about their history, culture, and their religion.

And so from that sort of thought process, you build out other products, other things, other offerings that also feed into that mission. Absolutely. We are definitely looking at building out more digital content. That would be available for purchase as well. But a lot of that came from content that we're putting out on social media. and we've noticed that those posts that are educational in nature tend to have the most engagement in terms of saves and shares.

And many people have actually asked, like, I wish this was like available like in a book format so that I could just like easily access it. So that's exactly what we're doing. And we're turning, converting all that into a digital downloadable asset. Nice. Mayshu, any last thoughts?

No, I think you're hitting a great core. I think with this cultural boundary. knowledge-based, but could be very AI-driven and very interactive. I think that's the key words to have a sustainable business model. The brand is called Modi Toys. Afne, thanks so much for calling in. Thank you so much for having me. Thanks.

Good luck. Yeah, I mean, it's a, it's interesting because, you know, we don't often get products on a show that are really targeting a specific group. But, I mean, when you're talking about a group that is so large, I mean, it is, it's, it's, It's almost like, you know, when your entire marketplace is just the United States, right? You can build a very robust company just in the U.S. because there's 300 million people. But if you're trying to build, you know, a massive brand in like Norway with 4 million people, it's a little harder. A little harder.

You really have to export that, you know, throughout Europe. I know you recently interviewed my friend Larry that started WE, and I was just going to say, this is what happened. Right? With such a very French idea back in 2017 or 2014, yeah. Right. And for people who don't know that story, he started out by selling home-delivered products like Asian food products. And now it's, you know, all kinds and different, you know, not just Chinese but Korean and things from Taiwan and Japan and sort of Latino food products. And so it's really interesting what they've built.

Yeah, culture bound. Hey, thanks so much for listening to this special mashup edition of the Advice Line. And special thanks to Randy Hedrick of TRX, Todd Graves, of Raising Cains and May Shoe of Chesapeake Bay Candles for joining me on the show. And again, if you haven't heard their original episodes or their full episodes of Advice Line, you'll definitely want to check them out. We'll have links in the show notes. And by the way, please make sure to check out my newsletter. You can sign up for it for free at guyraz.com or on Substack. And of course, if you are working on a business and you'd like to be on this show, send us a one-minute message that tells us a little bit about your business and the questions or issues that you're currently facing because we would love to try and help you solve them.

You can send us a voice memo at hibt at ID.wondry.com or call us at 1-800-433-1298. Leave a message there and make sure to tell us how to reach you and we'll put all of this information in the podcast description. as well. This episode was produced by Ramele Wood with music composed by Rumtina Rablui. It was edited by Andrea Bruce. Our engineer was Sina LaFredo. Our production staff also includes Casey Herman, Sam Paulson, Alex Chung, J.C. Howard, Carrie Thompson, Catherine Seifer, Neva Grant, and Elaine Coates. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to the advice line right here on How I Built This Lab.